‘I was only making a point,’ Tiny replied. ‘And I don’t expect to have to make it twice. Midge?’
‘Once will do.’
‘Flea?’
‘Once.’
The march resumed, because time yields to no reins, nor its plodding course turned aside by wishes or will. The mules cloppled, the carriage clattered, the horses snorted, and we who would claim to exception and privilege among all the things of this world, we measured each and every step in bitter humiliation. Oh, we stood taller in our minds, as is reason’s hollow gift, but what do such conceits avail us in the end?
Sixty paces ahead rose the tumulus announcing the wellspring, the heap of stones fluttering with bleached rags stuffed in cracks like banners of the crushed. But of Nifty Gum and his Entourage of Two there was no sign.
Snarling under his breath, Tulgord Vise kicked his horse into a canter, riding for the spring. Dust swirled like a mummer’s cape in his wake. With a click of his tongue Steck Marynd rode out to one side and stood in his stirrups, scanning the horizons.
Calap Roud and Brash Phluster drew close to me.
‘This is bad, Flicker,’ Calap muttered with low breath. ‘We can maybe eat Sellup tonight, if she ain’t gone foul by then.’
‘We should eat her now,’ Brash interjected. ‘That’d save us all for another night, wouldn’t it? Wouldn’t it? We got to suggest it – you do it, Flicker. Go on—’
‘Good sir,’ said I, ‘I am of no mind whatsoever to suggest such a heinous thing. Tell me, would you have her complain all the while? While a single piece of her flesh exists, the curse of the unliving remains – what eternal torment would you consign to the poor lass? Besides,’ I added, ‘I know little of the art of necromancy, but it occurs to me that such flesh is itself poison to the living. Will you risk becoming an undead?’
Brash licked his lips, his face white. ‘Gods below!’
‘What if Nifty got away?’ Calap demanded. ‘It’s impossible. He must be hiding out there somewhere. Him and his women. His kind get all the luck! Think of it, he’s got an undying fan! I’d kill for that!’
‘Calap Roud,’ said I, ‘your tale of the Imass is cause for concern. Where it leads …’
‘But it’s all I got, Flicker! The only one I remember word for word—’
‘Hold on!’ said Brash. ‘It ain’t yours? That’s cheating!’
‘No it isn’t. Nobody said it had to be our own compositions. This isn’t the Festival. They just want to be entertained, so if you need to steal then steal! Gods, listen to me. I’m giving you advice! My rival. Both of you! Flicker, listen! It’s your story that’s going to get us all killed. You’re too close to what’s really going on here—’
‘Am I? I think not, sir. Besides, my task now is quite different from the one you two face.’
‘That was some fancy trickery from you, too! She knows we can do a day or three without food. She only has to make sure you outlive me and Phluster, and then you can make the last long run to the ferry landing. You’re in cahoots, and don’t deny it!’
Brash Phluster smirked. ‘It don’t matter, Roud, because Flicker’s going to lose. And soon, before either of us.’
Arch did an eyebrow upon my benign demeanour. ‘Indeed?’
‘Indeed,’ he mimicked, wagging his head. ‘You see, I saw you, last night. And I saw her, too.’
Calap gasped. ‘He’s rollicking Purse Snippet? I knew it!’
‘Not her,’ Brash said, his eyes bright upon me, ‘Relish Chanter. I seen it, and if I tell Tiny – and maybe I’ll have to, to buy my life – why, you’re a dead man, Flicker.’
Calap was suddenly grinning. ‘We got him. We got Flicker. Hah! We’re safe, Brash! You and me, we’re going to make it!’
Did I quiver in terror? Did my knees rattle and bladder loosen to the prickly bloom of mortal panic? Did I fling myself at Brash, hands closing about his scrawny throat? An elbow to the side of Calap’s head? Did my mind race, seeking an escape? ‘Good sirs, more of this discussion anon. We have reached the spring.’
‘Aye,’ said Calap, ‘we can wait, can’t we, Brash?’
But Phluster grasped my arm. ‘Your tale’s going to go sour, Flicker. I know, you was nice to me but it’s too late for that kind of stuff. You were only generous because you felt safe. I’m not such a fool as to take such patronization from one such as you! I am a genius! You’re going to disappoint Snippet, do you understand me?’
‘I shall resume my tale, then, once we have slaked our thirsts.’
Brash’s grin broadened.
‘I always hated you,’ said Calap, now studying me as he would a worm. ‘Did you know that, Flicker? Oh, I saw the aplomb in your pertinence, and knew it as a fraud from the very first! Always acting like you knew a secret nobody else knows. And that smile you show every now and then – it makes me sick. Do you still think it’s all so amusing? Do you? Besides, your tale’s stupid. It can’t go anywhere, can it, because what you’re stealing from isn’t done yet, is it? You’re doomed to just repeat what’s already happened and they won’t take that much longer. So, even without Phluster’s ultimatum, you’re doomed to lose. You’ll die. We’ll carve you up and eat you, and we’ll feel good about it, too!’
Ah, artists! ‘The truth of the tale,’ said I, most calmly, ‘is not where it is going, but where it has been. Ponder that, if you’ve the energy. In the meantime, sustenance beckons, for I see that some water survives still, and Mister Must is already unhitching the mules. Best we drink before the beasts do, yes?’
Both men pushed past me in their haste.
I followed at a more leisurely pace. I have this thing, you see, about anticipation and abnegation, but of that, later.
Steck had ridden up and was now dismounting. ‘Found their tracks,’ he said, presumably to Tulgord. ‘As we know they must stay relatively close to the trail; however, we need not worry overmuch. Deprivation will bring them back.’
‘We can go hunting, too,’ said Tiny. ‘A bit of excitement,’ and he smiled his tiny ratty smile.
‘Drink your fill,’ cried the host, ‘all of you! Such benison! The gods have mercy, yes they do! Oh, perhaps this will suffice! Perhaps we can complete our journey without the loss of another life! I do implore you all, sirs! We can—’
‘We eat the artists,’ rumbled Tiny. ‘It was decided and there ain’t no point in going back on it. Besides, I’ve acquired a liking for the taste.’ And he laughed.
Midge laughed too.
So did Flea.
Relish yawned.
‘We rest here,’ announced Steck Marynd, ‘for a time.’
Purse Snippet was crouched down at the murky pool, splashing her face. I squatted beside her. ‘Sweet nectar,’ murmured I, reaching down.
‘They’re tyrants one and all,’ she said under her breath. ‘Even Steck Marynd, for all his airs.’
Cool water closed about my hand with a goddess touch. ‘Milady, it is the nature of such paragons of virtue, but can we truly claim to anything nobler? Human flesh has passed our lips, after all.’
She hissed in frustration. ‘Our reward for cowardly obedience!’
‘Just so.’
‘Where will your tale lead us, poet?’
‘The answer to that must, alas, wait.’
‘You’re all the same.’
‘Perhaps,’ I ventured, ‘while we may taste the same, we are in taste anything but the same. So one hopes.’
‘You jest even now, Avas Didion Flicker? Will we ever see your true self, I wonder?’
Cupping water, I took a sip. ‘We shall see, Milady.’
A woman I once knew possessed a Kanese Ratter, a hairy and puny lapdog with all sanity bred out of it, and hers was more crazed than most. Despite its proclivities, which included attacking in a frenzy overly loud children and stealing the toys and rattles of babies, the beast was entirely capable of standing on its hind legs for inordinate amounts of time, and its owner was most proud of this achievement. Training with titbits and whatnot was clearly efficacious even when the subject at hand possessed a brain the size of a betel nut.